NEAC Semifinal Victory For Wells Men's Volleyball

The Wells College men's volleyball team defeated SUNY Poly in three sets in a North Eastern Athletic Conference playoff semifinal match on Saturday, April 13 at Lancaster, Pa. Set scores were 25-15, 25-20, 27-25 for the Express, who advance to Sunday's championship match versus Lancaster Bible College at 1 p.m.

It is the third year in a row that Wells has advanced to the NEAC championship match, and the Express were runner-up to Penn State Altoona in 2017 and Lancaster Bible College in 2018. The host LBC Chargers have won two regular-season matches against Wells, and LBC is ranked 10th in the latest AVCA Division III national rankings.

In Saturday's semifinal match Wells hit efficiently, served 10 aces, and had a 37-29 advantage in digs.

Wells took the opening set when the Express slowly distanced themselves and built a 20-11 lead. The Express had 12 kills and six errors in the first set.

In the second set, SUNY Poly held a 13-6 lead but Wells answered with a 15-2 run to lead. The Express closed it out 25-20 on a kill from Joe Zimmerman and a kill from Josh Undari.

The third set saw both teams within one or two points for most of the set. SUNY Poly had a match point at 24-23 but had a service error followed by an attack error. The Wildcats defended one set point for Wells, but the Express closed it out with another service error from Poly and a kill by Robert Patzer. Wells hit .323 in the third on 15 kills and five errors and Poly hit .343 with 16 kills and four errors.

Caden O'Loughlin, named First Team All-NEAC earlier this week, hit .267 with a team-high 11 kills. Joe Zimmerman and Robert Patzer had nine kills each. Josh Undari had 32 assists. Wells served 10 aces, with three each from Zimmerman, Patzer, and Undari. Zimmerman had nine digs and O'Loughlin had eight digs with two block assists.